See you at our Bon Voyage Party hosted by Greg Louganis on August 17th (6pm) at the Seattle Sheraton Ballroom, where we will be announcing some new and exciting Pride of the Ocean Festival cruises in the future.

John Scagliotti
Program Director.

PS:  Here are just a few things we are doing on our Alaska cruise…

• Andrea Meyerson will be honored with a Body of Work award
• Freedom to Marry’s Michael Crawford will lead a Post-Supreme Court decision on Gay Marriage Discussion
• Cheryl Furjanic will screen “Back on Board”, her documentary on Greg Louganis
• Yoruba Richen will screen her much anticipated documentary, “The New Black”
• 14 emerging young filmmakers will be workshopping their film projects
• Opening and closing cocktail parties
• White Pass Railroad excursion in Skagway
• Glacier Bay National Park
• Logo and ITVS executives will share rare insights into both the for-profit cable television and the non-profit public television sectors of the media industry
• Q-MeCon panel discussion on the future of LGBT media
• Seminar on the future of film distribution by former TLA Releasing Vice President, Kelly Burkhardt

Only a Few Cabins Remain on the only LGBT Film Festival at Sea

Anticipating the leap in size this year, Program Director John Scagliotti and Cruise Director Jim Pollin planned for more cabins to be available for the expanding audience of 2013.

“Our cruise has leaped in size every year,” states Pollin, “and this year we knew we would see another burst of interest for our first West Coast departure.”

“We are delighted that our growth even surpassed our expectations.”

As the passenger list expanded, Pollin ensured the group had the space they needed. “Interest has been so high, the railroad car reserved for the group shore excursion in Skagway on the White Pass Railroad sold out. We quickly added another car, and that sold out as well.”

Pollin and his team accommodated the growing group, but at this point there are only a few more cabins that can be reserved. “There is a limit to even our ability to corral additional cabins,” laughed Pollin. “We can offer a last few cabins, but as of the end of May, our group will be closed.”

World Class Programming Meets Luxury Cruise Travel

Program Director Scagliotti, well-known for his many firsts in the LGBT community, from creating the first gay radio program in 1973 to the first gay TV series on PBS, anticipated increased interest this year, but was also pleasantly surprised by the size of the response. “Pride of the Ocean has distinguished itself as a world-class film festival combined with a luxury cruise vacation, and people are responding.”

After traveling on a previous Pride of the Ocean cruise, New York Times travel writer George Gustines remarked, “The true delight of the trip was… the friends we made on the cruise.” Scagliotti believes this to be a driving factor in the increase in passengers. “George saw the heart of what Pride of the Ocean offers, that being an engaging, smart group of people who you want to spend time with on board a beautiful ship.”

With partners such as filmmaker Andrea Meyerson, who also started the nationwide lesbian travel organization Women on a Roll, community excitement from LGBT travelers built the audience. “We watched our numbers climb through word of mouth – the very best form of recruitment that tells us we’re on the right track,” said Scagliotti.

Meyerson will be honored on board with the prestigious “Body of Work” award, for her contributions to LGBT film with her series of LAUGHING MATTERS documentaries about trailblazing LGBT comedians, and her dedication to the LGBT community.

Along with Meyerson, Yoruba Richen will be on board screening her highly anticipated film, THE NEW BLACK, about the complicated relationship between the civil rights and gay rights movements, utilizing marriage equality as a lens for examination. Special guest, national marriage equality advocate Michael Crawford, will host a panel after the showing.

Passengers will also get a sneak peek at Nancy Kates’ documentary for HBO, REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG. The documentary about the cultural icon will show on HBO at a point later in the year still to be determined.

Cheryl Furjanic will screen her recently completed BACK ON BOARD, the story of Olympic diving legend and highly visible gay athlete Greg Louganis. Often referred to as the best diver of all time, Louganis will be joining the Bon Voyage party in Seattle, at which Pride of the Ocean passengers meet the night before setting sail.

“Our guests will meet Greg, and hear about our exciting plans for 2014,” says Scagliotti. “We always look forward to releasing announcements about the following year at our Bon Voyage.”

Another exciting year, and beyond, is in the wings. “With John’s plans for next year and 2015, we know we will keep growing,” says Pollin.

Since 2009, smart and engaging people like you have been coming to Pride of the Ocean for the unique experience of enjoying an ocean cruise and a film festival together. Past passengers have included everyone from cruise aficionados, to film enthusiasts, to people who simply like to travel, but it has been getting to meet and know our aspiring young filmmakers that has been one of the main attractions over the past three years, and into our fourth. As George Gene Gustines said in his New York Times article, “The true delight of the trip was…the friends we made.” Come meet some of those friends, many of which you could meet on our 2013 Alaska cruise, as we look back on some of our past young aspiring filmmakers and ask, “Where are they now?”

Pride of the Ocean’s CineSLAM has taken on an entirely new inspiring landscape by heading out to sea – offering a full retreat with special guests, seminars, panels, industry knowledge… and of course the all-important CineSLAM Film Slam workshops.  The Film Slam Seminars provide an opportunity for emerging filmmakers to workshop their projects in focused, peer-driven critique sessions.  Susi Walsh, Executive Director of the Center for Independent Documentary, which sponsors the workshops, facilitates on board the ship.  Creating this world outside of the everyday, for filmmakers to concentrate on their art, has succeeded in allowing the work to flourish, and the talent has indeed bloomed.

Take a walk with us through the garden of successful careers, and meet some of our past CineSLAM participants and see where have their paths led.

Cheryl Furjanic

Yoruba Richen

Two alums – Cheryl Furjanic and Yoruba Richen – will join us on Pride of the Ocean 2013 in August. Cheryl continues in the world of water, her award-winning Sync or Swim documentary of an Olympic-hopeful synchronized swimming team giving way to BACK ON BOARD, the story of Greg Louganis. Yoruba is bringing to the Norwegian Pearl her completed and much-anticipated documentary THE NEW BLACK, chronicling the complicated relationship of the civil rights and LGBT movements, after working on it at the 2011 Slam.

Sam Berliner

Other alums are making waves all over the independent film world – Sam Berliner joined the 2011 seminars with his film Genderbusters, and has continued his groundbreaking work in Trans New Wave filmmaking, that he described as “films [that] move past traditional coming out or transition nuts and bolts stories to films with characters that embody their sexual orientations and gender identities without calling attention to it, nodding to an audience who already understands the implied history and experience, and giving the film the freedom to focus on the story.” Genderbusters has gone around the world at international film festivals, and Sam is now working on getting it into schools, LGBTQ centers, and PFLAG chapters. Most exciting, this year he has the perfect place to work in this arena, as the newly named Festival Director of Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festvial! “As a trans filmmaker myself, I have a deep passion for and commitment to trans and queer cinema, and I am very excited to run this amazing festival with the folks from Three Dollar Bill Cinema.”

Just as Pride of the Ocean offers a safe space for filmmakers to explore the diversity of filmmaking in theme and style, Sam describes the importance of that space as emulated by festivals such as CineSLAM. Regarding Translations he states, “A transgender film festival offers a safe space to celebrate, honor, mourn, learn, grow, relate, cry, empathize, accept, laugh… It is a space that we can excitedly return to each year to keep tabs on this ever shifting and beautifully evolving community.” In addition to his work on the festival, he continues to make his own films, currently working on DATING SUCKS: A GENDERQUEER MISADVENTURE, an animated documentary webseries about the successes, failures and overall confusion of trying to date as a genderqueer/trans person.

Dean Hamer

Joe Wilson

Continuing in a different area of the transgender and gender nonconforming exploration, comes the work of Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, renowned for their film OUT IN THE SILENCE about the announcement of Joe’s marriage to another man hitting his home town, a conservative rural community in Pennsylvania. Workshopped at an early CineSLAM Seminar, Joe and Dean took the film across the country to small towns and rural areas, in a campaign to provide “a model for grassroots efforts to fight prejudice and discrimination.” The partners have turned their camera from their own story to an exciting new PBS film, supported by ITVS and Pacific Islanders in Communications, that “brings the powerful perspective of the Pacific Islands to bear on one of the most important and hotly contested issues of our time: dignity, respect and human rights for transgender and gender nonconforming people around the world.”

Wilson and Hamer note that high profile films about transgender people over the years have tended to focus on the prejudice, discrimination, and hostility that trans people face. Their new film KUMU HINA celebrates the still-existing ancient Hawaiian tradition of acceptance of mahu, people who display both male and female characteristics. The filmmakers state, “Like many ancient societies, pre-contact Hawaiians regarded those… characteristics as gifted and special. They called these people mahu and valued and respected them as caretakers of family and guardians of culture.” Despite two centuries of colonization and repression, the tradition continues, and “…is embodied by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, an extraordinary native Hawaiian who is both a proud and confident mahu, or transgender woman, and an honored and respected kumu, or teacher, cultural practitioner, and community leader.”

The new film will play major festivals and be broadcast on national public television, but much like the goals of CineSLAM, Hamer and Wilson acknowledge that they are “most excited about following the trail blazed by OUT IN THE SILENCE, and will be using [KUMU HINA] as a tool for community outreach, organizing and education… [and] to launch an exciting community engagement campaign aimed at igniting social change – Hawaiian-style, or as Hina says, ‘with acceptance and aloha for all.’”

Yun Suh

Following the international work of CineSLAM alums, we arrive at the award-winning work of Yun Suh, and her film CITY OF BORDERS, “which follows the community at the only gay bar in Jerusalem where Israelis and Palestinians share a common need for belonging and acceptance while facing extraordinary risks for challenging society’s greatest taboos.” City of Borders premiered at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival where it won a special Teddy (Audience) Award and continues to screen worldwide from Toronto to Tokyo. In 2008, an early look at this theme in FREEDOM ON THE ROCKS won the Chessie Award for Best Short at CineSLAM, and CITY OF BORDERS was featured on the very first Pride of the Ocean LGBT Film Festival, bringing the unique CineSLAM experience into an even more inspiring atmosphere, onto the high seas.

Ryan Harrington

Kristi Jacobson

Back in the United States, Ryan Harrington is director of documentary and programming at the Tribeca Film Institute, and “develops other initiatives and programs that support non-fiction filmmaking.” Ryan participated in multiple panels on Pride of the Ocean 2011. At that time he was

independently working on the powerful full-length documentary Hungry In America, with filmmakers Kristi Jacobson & Lori Silverbush and Participant Media, that explores why so many people in the USA go without food, and what can be done about it.

Lori Silverbush

The final film, A PLACE AT THE TABLE: HUNGRY IN AMERICA, was completed in 2012 and was shown at Sundance among other festivals, and shared the stories of three people struggling with food insecurity, along with commentary from experts including sociologist Janet Poppendieck, author Raj Patel and nutrition policy leader Marion Nestle; regular citizens like Pastor Bob Wilson and teachers Leslie Nichols and Odessa Cherry; and activists such as Witness to Hunger’s Mariana Chilton, Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio and Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges.

From the United States, we travel far afield to… the stars? The feature film CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME, from prolific writer and director Madeleine Olnek and produced by Laura Terruso of DYKE DOLLAR fame, both alums of the 2010 CineSLAM. Olnek was drawn to the independent film scene for its more cutting edge approach, producing several short films between 2006 – 2009, and certainly found that cutting edge approach in the CineSLAM Seminars. CODEPENDENT LESBIAN premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and has been traveling every since. Asked in an interview just a few months ago what draws her to lesbian feminist comedy rather than drama, Olnek states, “I think to make a comedy is to give something back to the world. A drama, not so much. Life is already dramatic. Comedy gives people joy.”

Madeleine Olnek

Laura Terruso

That theme can be seen in Terruso’s work as well, with her film DYKE DOLLAR, workshopped at CineSLAM, a film she tags as, “American economic angst and gay panic explodes in suburban New Jersey.” Terruso continues to produce, write and direct, and her work has screened at venues such as Lincoln Center, MOMA and the Anthology Film Archives and at over sixty film festivals worldwide including SXSW, Sundance, Rooftop Films, The Sarasota Film Festival, The Viennale, Brisbane International Film Festival, Rio De Janeiro International Film Festival, among many others. Her latest works include Doris & The Intern, Bum Future and It Gets Bitter.

Bryan Horch

We are delighted to celebrate the ongoing success of so many filmmakers who found the individual space that is CineSLAM, and expect the trend to continue. Just this month, as this article goes to press, we learn that Bryan Horch, who will be screening SPOONERS on Pride of the Ocean 2013, has just had the film accepted into Frameline as the “Fun in Boys Shorts” selection to be screened in the Castro Theater, Toronto Inside Out, and Seattle International Film Festival on the same weekend. SPOONERS will also be at the Boston LGBT Film Festival and at the MFA.

Pride of the Ocean is proud to feature so many incredible, talented filmmakers and work directly with them in the CineSLAM seminars. Nothing is so enjoyable as having them back on the ship to display finished work!

Sailing with us?  You’ll get the sneak preview of the new film “Regarding Susan Sontag,” even before it is seen on HBO.
On Monday morning programming at sea, Producer/Director Nancy Kates will present her full-length documentary on the cultural icon, followed by a look at the role of the producer, in the seminar “To Produce or Not to Produce?”

A Life of Controversy

Brilliant, openly gay comedian Scott Kennedy passed away this March, in the 23rd year of his standup career. Not yet 50, the world of comedy and the world at large lost so much with his passing.

Andrea Meyerson has dedicated to Scott the special screening of her film Laughing Matters: The Men. Scott was one of the comics starring in this third entry in her award-winning Laughing Matters series on LGBT comics – “shot in her winning formula that interweaves stand-up material with candid interviews, viewers are given the opportunity to at once laugh and simultaneously understand the voyage that has led these performers to the stage… [including] Scott Kennedy, whose three years in military school and youth in rural Texas makes for hilarious anecdotes.”

Scott brought with him to his career his admiration for those serving in the military, putting his stateside career on hold to travel on many USO tours of Afghanistan and Iraq, performing up to five times a day in over 50 trips. He even organized his own touring show, Comics Ready to Entertain, as Dave Holmes reports on Huffington Post, “because – get this – the USO wouldn’t take him to dangerous-enough military bases.”Holmes continues, “He was an out gay comedian in a time when it was not at all easy to be an out gay comedian, and often in places where it was not at all easy to be an out gay comedian, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan, or in front of our troops at the height of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ …Scott Kennedy did the right thing, quietly, in about a dozen difficult ways.”

Andrea Meyerson, another trailblazer for our community, defies that trend in our media and our society, by bringing to the Pride of the Ocean film festival an honoring of Scott’s life and work. Meyerson career has been studded with many awards for her LGBT activism and work in women’s rights. She is the founder of Women On A Roll, one of the country’s largest organizations for lesbians, members of which will be joining us on board to celebrate Andrea’s contribution.As she has done so well and for so long, Andrea continues to bring light to the joy and strength of LGBT people everywhere – by honoring the light that was Scott Kennedy’s gift of laughter.

Randall has been in the journalism field for 20 years, including roles as editor and travel editor of three national Canadian gay magazines, and appearing on TV and radio as an expert in gay travel, cruise travel, and theatre travel. He frequently writes for publications such as Travel+Leisure, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, Canada’s Calgary Herald and Up! inflight magazine.

His travels have taken him to 699 cities, 44 U.S. states, all Canadian provinces and territories, and 35 different countries. An avid fan of cruise travel, he even visited remote Nunavut on a cruise ship.

You will find Randall’s Alaskan shore excursion recommendations on MeetMeOnBoard.com, the cruise website for which he is an editor. MeetMeOnBoard is an innovative site making your cruise travel friendlier and more fulfilling by connecting you with your community. Through membership profiles, it offers a great way to meet your fellow LGBT passengers, even when your cruise experience isn’t centered on a ready-made introduction such as an LGBT film festival!

Both Randall and his husband Denni will join you aboard the Norwegian Pearl, along with at least eight other members of MeetMeOnBoard.com.  Ask them to tell you about the benefits of the site – finding out who will be on your next cruise, swapping ship tips, meeting new people who share your love of travel – then chat about our destination Alaska!

So sail on over to check out the MeetMeOnBoard site, and keep watch on Randall’s posts for the next few weeks, at www.meetmeonboard.com/blog/author/jrandalls/. To get a jump on learning about our shore excursions, visit the Itinerary link here on our website.

Michael Crawford, from Freedom to Marry
leads the discussion

By the time you set sail with us up the Pacific Northwest’s Inside Passage to Glacier Bay, watching our array of ground-breaking films, we will already know the Supreme Court’s conclusions. Decisions are due in June on the vital challenges both to California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in that state, and to the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, prohibiting the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage under federal laws.

Your Pride of the Ocean film festival will examine the outcomes of this historic event, through the lens of our artistic medium, by hosting a screening of the multiple award-winning film “I DO” followed by a special discussion led by Crawford.

“I DO” presents the story of a British gay man forced by discrimination to make an impossible choice, when left to raise his brother’s daughter with his sister-in-law Mya after his brother is killed in a car crash. The film examines the families and couples often split apart, especially those with bi-national makeups. Among the myriad of inequities the denial of marriage perpetuates, the immigration laws most heterosexual couples can take for granted complicate same-sex relationships further, even in states where marriage is already legal.

Pride of the Ocean’s John Scagliotti
with Producer Stephen Israel

Written by and starring David Ross, directed by Glenn Gaylord, “I DO” is produced by Stephen Israel. Israel will take part in Crawford’s panel after the screening of the film, along with lawyer Michael J. Shilub, a leader in the legal fight challenging Proposition 8.

Crawford will lead the panel in exploring exactly what the June decisions will mean to the LGBT community – whichever way the gavel descends. As Crawford responded after receiving his invitation to join us on the Norwegian Pearl, “The Supreme Court decisions could potentially have a transformative impact on LGBT equality in the US.”

Pride of the Ocean is delighted to bring together this coterie of active leaders and filmmakers on our cruise, offering you the opportunity to meet and discourse with them. Marriage activists everywhere will enjoy the company of Crawford, the co-founder and co-chair of the successful D.C. for Marriage campaign, a grassroots group that engaged in thousands of conversations with D.C. residents about gay people and marriage, with a particular focus on building support in the African-American community. He introduced digital and new media tools to support the fight, in innovative ways that some consider to have swayed opinion decisively.

John Scagliotti makes it legal with David Hall
in one of the first such ceremonies in Vermont, 2001

Of all of his considerable body of legislative and organizing work, Crawford states, “I am most proud of the work I am doing on marriage. I truly believe that the winning of marriage nationwide will have a transformative effect on the LGBT community and the larger American culture. For me, the best part of that work is seeing amazing couples that are now able to marry, in part because of my work.”

Sail with the Pride of the Ocean this August, and be a part of the array of amazing couples from around the country.

Chef Lisa Schwab, owner of Cantalini’s Salerno Beach Restaurant, encourages her fellow “Women on a Roll” to follow her lead to the rolling waves of the north Pacific this August, with the Pride of the Ocean Film Festival.  Join her and the other women of WOAR in toasting this year’s Body of Work Honoree, the dynamic Andrea Meyerson – founder of the active social organization for lesbians.

Andrea Meyerson (center) at WOAR promotion for Pride of the Ocean

– so much so that she is making time for her first vacation in many years to be on the Norwegian Pearl with the other women of WOAR to celebrate Andrea!

Chef Schwab’s traditional Italian cuisine restaurant – always receiving rave reviews from fans of authentic Italian – won another devotee when Cantalini’s catered the WOAR Holiday Party last December, sponsored by Pride of the Ocean.  Our Program Director, John Scagliotti, pronounced her dish “the best Chicken Piccata… EVER!”

From a start as a women’s cycling group in 1995, Women on a Roll quickly grew in popularity and numbers over the years to offer women a wide range of social, sporting, cultural and travel opportunities. Now over 10,000 members travel and adventure together both near and far, for pleasure, recreation, and community activism.  Completing the circle, the Pride of the Ocean Film Festival is an official WOAR trip this year, offering the multitude of members an adventure with their founder herself.

Women on a Roll members at the Pride of the Ocean promotion

Guests will enjoy a special event for Andrea on the afternoon of Saturday, August 24, in the beautiful Indigo Dining Room on the Norwegian Pearl.

The festival cruise brings into sharp focus another of Andrea’s many celebrated talents – her accomplished film-making. With the same entrepreneurial spirit that led her to start WOAR, and then her own event production company StandOut Productions in 1997, Andrea launched All Out Films in 2002. Since then she has produced and directed 27 films. All three of her companies contribute to Andrea’s passion of providing high quality events and entertainment for the LGBT community, coupled with considerable charitable support.  Recently Andrea has been touring with her acclaimed documentary, “I Stand Corrected,” the story of jazz bass virtuoso Jennifer Leitham, and her transition to her true self at the height of her career, from her previous identity as John Leitham.

A selection of Andrea’s award-winning documentaries – the “Laughing Matters” series – chronicle LGBT comics, from the trailblazers to the very latest names. In a recent interview with Curve magazine, Andrea described how the topic dovetailed with her dedication to social action. “I think I’ve always been connected to comedy because it’s so important to laugh. It gives us power and definitely makes the struggles we have encountered to obtain equal rights a little easier.”

What better adventure to embark on as a celebration of Andrea Meyerson than this cruise? The Pride of the Ocean Film Festival encompasses such a range of her life’s work – exploration, travel, film, fabulous entertainment by and for the LGBT community… and plenty of laughter, guaranteed.

Visit the Pride of the Ocean site to book your cabin and join the WOAR members already signed up and ready to sail. http://prideoftheocean.com/?page_id=2077

Jason’s on-board seminar is entitled “The Importance of Being Short” and he has selected some favorite shorts from his time programming in Seattle to share with us. In addition to his expertise, Jason brings his buoyant enthusiasm to the delightful mix of personalities aboard the Norwegian Pearl.

Similar to the Pride of the Ocean Film Festival itself, Jason originated in New England. A native of Bristol, Connecticut, he honed his programming skills with the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, serving as co-director for two years. He premiered his own feature length documentary at the Connecticut festival – Harold’s Home Movies, co-created with Sean West, celebrating the home movies of Harold “Hal” O’Neal’s 70 years living in San Francisco.

In an interview after the completion of Harold’s Home Movies, Jason shared his thoughts on the responsibility of the filmmaker, “I think a filmmaker has a responsibility to present a story as honestly as possible, while trying to inform, educate and entertain the audience.” We are confident that our guests on the Norwegian Pearl will indeed be informed and entertained by Jason – as a filmmaker, festival producer, and fellow adventurer.

Chris and Jim provide a rare insight into the inner workings of both the for-profit cable television and the non-profit public television sectors of the media industry. Help us welcome Chris and Jim as we set sail from Seattle to Alaska on August 18th and don’t miss Chris Willey’s panel discussion on the future of LGBT Media during the cruise.

Haven’t booked your cabin yet? It’s not too late, and complimentary upgrades are still available, but not for long. Visit our reservations page or call Geisha Cumberbatch at (866) 432-0050 to see what options are still available.